


Chasing Secrets

by orphan_account



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Alien Cultural Differences, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, False Accusations, Graphic Description of Corpses, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Terrorism, M/M, Unconventional Courtship 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 03:15:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7342438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter Quill would do whatever it took to prove his innocence-and Garthan Saal was the key to clearing his name. His testimony had sent him to jail for a crime he didn’t commit and he could never forget what he had cost him. Peter had escaped to find justice...but his salvation meant marrying a man he couldn’t trust. </p><p>Newly wedded to an escaped con and on the run from the law, Garthan didn’t think things could get much worse-but he was wrong. When their quest to clear Peter’s name turned deadly, their need to believe in each other was suddenly a matter of life or death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Unconventional Courtship 2016. Based (incredibly loosely) on [Chasing Secrets](https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Secrets-Landry-Brothers-Roberts-ebook/dp/B006YABCXE/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&qid=1467245169&sr=8-14&keywords=chasing+secrets) by Kelsey Roberts. I couldn't tell you how accurate to the actual book this is, since I didn't read the original, but I hope you'll get some enjoyment out of this anyway.

All things considered, Peter Quill had a sort of natural ability to be in the wrong place at the wrong time Combined with his natural propensity to try to do both what would be most beneficial for him, and what was the supposedly “objective” right thing to do, it tended to get him into situations he wasn’t able to get out of. It had gotten him into fights as a child. It had gotten him abducted by aliens the day his mother died. It had gotten him into more trouble than he could count as an adult (he was always a sucker for a pretty face).

And it had gotten him blamed for a terrorist attack on Xandar.

Really, the smart thing to do would have been to run like hell in the other direction when things started exploding. Hell, he wasn’t even supposed to have _been_ on Xandar in the first place- he was supposed to have been halfway to Morag by then- but he’d decided to stop on Xandar first and see if one of his flings was up for a bit of something-something. She hadn’t been- she’d threatened to literally throw him out of her tenth-story window- but that hadn’t deterred him at all. Xandar had enough clubs and dance-halls and other places where one could go to meet someone who’d be up for a no-strings-attached night of fun.

Peter had been halfway to one of his favorites, when he heard a loud booming sound, followed immediately by terrified screaming and a plume of smoke rising up to fill the sky. By the time he’d processed that he’d just heard an explosion, there had already been two more of them. Instead of doing the sensible thing and running back to his ship to get the hell out of Dodge, he’d decided to do the stupid thing and run _towards_ the explosion.

Really, he didn’t know why he’d done it. If there was one thing that growing up with Ravagers had taught him, it was that there was no profit in doing things out of the goodness of your heart. While you were distracted, someone else would slip in, grab your big score, and get all the glory, credit, and units for it.  Yondu had made sure he’d understood that early on. But somehow, Peter wasn’t able to completely kill that altruistic streak that had budded during his short time on Terra. 

Maybe it was seeing the woman stumbling out of her bombed-out apartment building clutching her wounded child to her chest while screaming for medical help. Maybe it was seeing the man digging through a pile of rubble while shouting his wife’s name. Maybe it was seeing the little boy sitting in the middle of the street crying for his mother. Maybe it was a combination of all of those- but whatever the cause, Peter Quill found himself running towards the epicenter of the blasts, grabbing the terrified little boy out of the street as he ran, setting him down safely on the other side within sight of the Nova Corps officers who’d arrived on the scene- they’d be able to take care of him better than Peter would.

He’d barely begun trying to help dig out a man trapped under what appeared to be the remains of a load-bearing wall when he found himself encased in a projection of the Nova Force while a dour-faced officer glared down at him. Before Peter had a chance to ask what the hell was going on, he found himself dragged before the Nova Prime, accused of being part of a radical Kree terrorist cell that had carried out the attack, and summarily sentenced to a high-security prison.

No matter how many times Peter protested that he wasn’t a Kree terrorist – “Seriously!!? Do I look blue to you? Why would I want to work with those racist bastards? Do you really think they’d even accept me in the first place?!” – his criminal record as a Ravager was held against him, as was his personal connection to Yondu Udonta. Huh, who would have known that when he was younger, Yondu had briefly worked with a Kree radical group? Oh, sure, he’d ended up stealing a huge amount of units from them, and probably thwarted an attack that would have been similar in scale to this one, but the fact that Yondu had pretended to work with them was enough to make Peter guilty by association. That, combined with the testimony of the Nova Corps Denarian- a man named Saal, he learned at the trial- was enough to get him sentenced to life in a high-security prison. Apparently, running towards what eventually was revealed to be an unexploded bomb was considered good proof that you were a terrorist going to see why the bomb hadn’t exploded in the first place.

Despite Peter’s protests that yeah, he’d broken the law before- he was a thief, after all- but that he’d never murder innocent civilians for whatever reason, the jury didn’t believe him, and Nova Prime had concurred. The people of Xandar were crying out for their pound of flesh, and as they hadn’t caught anyone who they could even tenuously connect to the crime other than Peter, it just made sense to put him away.

Apparently, innocence wasn’t a defense against charges of wrongdoing on Xandar.

* * *

Two years he’d waited in the Kyln, fending off angry Xandarians, amorous aliens, and _actual_ Kree radicals. Sometimes, Peter felt that the only thing keeping him sane was his rage. Once he got out of here- and it really was only a matter of time before Yondu or Kraglin or Maka or someone realized that they hadn’t seen him in two years and busted him out of here- the first thing he was going to do was go hunt down the _real_ terrorists. Nobody framed Peter Quill for murder and got away with it!

And then the second thing he was going to do was track down Denarian Saal and kick his ass. While he wasn’t quite as high on Peter’s shitlist as the terrorists, he was pretty far up there. Nobody actually fell for Peter Quill being framed for murder and got away with it, either!

Ultimately, his chance to escape happened when a loudmouthed talking raccoon, a bizarre tree-like alien, a tattooed hulk of a man, and a suspiciously-familiar green woman caused enough of a diversion. What kind of lunatic flew a _goddamn guard tower_ through the prison after turning off the artificial gravity? Once the guards had managed to get the gravity fixed, everything was in such chaos that nobody noticed a single Terran slip away, grab his things, and commandeer his ship back.

Setting his course for Xandar, Peter popped his tape into the tape deck, and got to plotting. He’d have to do this carefully- it would probably be a while before anyone realized he was gone, but once they did, there would be a massive manhunt for him, he suspected. As far as Xandar was concerned, he was a complete maniac who had no compunction about blowing up a residential district. Finding out that somebody like that was on the loose would terrify him, too, especially if they found out he was heading for Xandar in the first place.

* * *

Most of the time, Garthan Saal enjoyed his job. It was an honor to be a part of the Nova Corps, keeping the people of Xandar, and all of the galaxy, safe. But some days he wondered if he should have just stayed home and taken over his father’s noodle shop.

Those days tended to be few and far between, but when they did happen, sometimes he was halfway to Nova Prime’s office to tender his resignation before he finally snapped out of it and remembered that he _really hated noodles._ But after the day he’d had, he sort of wondered if maybe it was time to just endure his dislike of the dish and give noodles another try.

Garthan had spent the first half of the day poring over the reports coming from the breakout at the Kyln- both guards and prisoners had given their statements, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that pretty much all of the reports more or less corroborated, he would have said that the whole debacle was the work of a particularly imaginative drama scriptwriter. The group of escapees was outlandish enough- an escaped genetic experiment, a Flora Colossus, an extremely dangerous homicidal maniac, and a terrorist known to be an adopted daughter of Thanos. Privately, Garthan was amazed they’d all refrained from killing each other long enough to come up with a semi-coherent plan of escape, much less actually pull it off, but that wasn’t even the crazy part. Apparently they’d done it by barricading themselves in a guard tower and turning off the artificial gravity everywhere else in the prison other than the tower. They’d manage to crash it through the reinforced steel doors and get out that way, but not before causing plenty of carnage and mayhem in the process. Even several days later they still didn’t have an accurate count of the casualties. About a quarter of the prisoners were unaccounted for, and about a sixth of the guards were still missing, but Garthan had an unpleasant feeling that once they managed to identify the many unrecognizably squashed remains they’d find most of the missing.

The incident was meant to have been kept quiet- the Nova Corps would investigate, determine what happened, sanitize the story a bit, and then it would be sent to the press in the form of a controlled conference with Nova Prime. But the true story had leaked, and such a bizarre incident was prime fodder for the press. Unfortunately, the facts had gotten somewhat scrambled, and now the public was convinced that there was a team of homicidal maniacs headed straight for Xandar to slaughter them all.

Garthan had drawn the short straw and had to give the press conference, reassuring everyone that the Nova Corps had everything under control that the fugitives would be apprehended, and order would be restored. Of course, after the furor that the damn tabloids had whipped up, convincing people of that was not a very easy task. He’d spent all day being questioned furiously, and attempting to dispel some of the crazier rumors- (no, the escaped fugitives had not stolen Asgardian technology, and no, they were not part of a interplanetary drug cartel intending to get everyone addicted to spice, and they most certainly were not using stolen Asgardian technology to get everyone addicted to spice).

Exhausted, Garthan slid the key into the lock, letting himself into his apartment. He intended to have a quick meal, take a nice bath, and then go to sleep. He was tired, and he felt he deserved it after the day he’d had.

He was so tired that he’d failed to notice the insectoid human-like creature with glowing red eyes lurking behind the door. Before Garthan could process what was happening, the humanoid stuck him in the neck with something he belatedly realized was a hypodermic needle.  Garthan went down like a sack of rocks, blackness descending over his sight.. The last thing he heard before the darkness took him completely was a slight metallic “heh” from the thing.

* * *

Gradually, like he was swimming through syrup to reach the air, Garthan came to. Whatever drug had been in that needle was potent- even though he was awake now, he still felt dizzy and sickly, like he’d spent some time spinning around like a child playing a game. Once he’d recovered enough to actually process higher-order thought, he started taking stock of his surroundings.

He was tied to a chair. Usually, that was not a good sign, but whoever had tied him up had seemed to take care that the bonds wouldn’t hurt him. They were certainly secure enough that he wouldn’t be able to get out of them without help, but the ropes weren’t digging into his skin, or cutting off his circulation. There was enough slack in the ropes binding his hands that he could move them around a bit- still not enough to free himself, but he was able to move them enough to scratch his nose if necessary. His legs were tied somewhat more tightly, but still did not bite into him too harshly.

The room he was in was tiny. And messy. It appeared to be someone’s bedroom- there was an unmade bed in the corner, and clothes and other personal effects were scattered over every available surface. Garthan wrinkled his nose as he noticed a pair of boxer shorts casually flung over what looked like a communicator charging station. That couldn’t be sanitary.

And then it belatedly hit him. He was being held captive in someone’s bedroom.

That was a first. Usually if criminals actually managed to keep a Nova Corps officer imprisoned, they kept them in a storage warehouse or something, not in their bedroom. Maybe this had nothing to do with his status as a Nova Corps officer… maybe he’d had some kind of stalker that he hadn’t noticed, with more… indecent… intentions towards him.

With that in mind, Garthan started wiggling even more frantically, testing out his bonds, to see if he could free himself completely, or at least get his hands loose enough to be able to fight back if necessary.

Before he was able to wiggle himself to freedom, however, the door to the room opened, and Garthan watched as his captor swaggered in.

“Quill,” he spat.

“Denarian Saal,” Peter Quill replied with a smirk. “Welcome aboard!”

“Welcome aboard?” Garthan replied incredulously. “You break out of prison, kidnap me, and tie me up in your bedroom, and the only thing you have to say to me is ‘welcome aboard?!’”

“Sheesh,” Peter said, surveying the enraged Denarian with an infuriatingly cocky smirk. “You try to make a guy comfortable and look at the thanks you get! Would you rather I tied you up in the cargo hold? There’s no climate control down there, and I’d have to tie you to a support beam so you’d hang from your wrists. But hey, if you’re into that sort of thing…” he grinned, only infuriating Garthan more.

“Release me,” he ordered, trying to sound as imperious as he could. “Let me go and I won’t argue for your execution when you’re returned to the Kyln, where you belong.”

The grin slid right off of Peter’s face. “I won’t go back to the Kyln,” he said seriously. “And I can’t let you go.” He sighed, plopping down onto the bed so that he was sitting at Garthan’s height. “There is no Kyln anymore. It’s gone. The whole thing’s gone. There were no survivors, except for me and the other escapees. And I saved your life, man! If I hadn’t taken you when I did, you’d be dead.”

“What happened?” Garthan couldn’t help himself. Why was he even bothering? Of course Peter Quill had something to do with it- the man was a murderer! He’d already blown up a city block! He already knew what had happened- there wasn’t any other possibility.

Peter sighed. “What do you know of a man named Ronan the Accuser?” he asked.

“Ronan the Accuser? He’s a Kree terrorist, responsible for the murder of many Xandarians- and you’ve worked with him, haven’t you.”

“What?! Of course I haven’t!” Peter replied indignantly. “Look man, I might be a thief, but I’ve never been involved with that crazy bastard. Believe it or not, I’m not a complete dick!”

“Yet you set off that bomb,” Garthan sneered. “Of course you weren’t connected to Ronan, you just carried out his orders.”

“I did not!” Peter snapped. “I don’t know what you think you know, but you don’t actually know anything! Yeah, I was there that day the attack happened. And yeah, I was on Xandar to pick up some stuff, and take a break from being alone in empty space!. And yeah, I was in that block because I was visiting one of the- uh- my friends,” he quickly caught himself before he revealed anything too awkward. “She lived in that apartment block,” he continued. “I was halfway up the street when the bomb went off, and like the idiot I am, as soon as I heard the screaming and cries for help, I ran towards it. I don’t know, I couldn’t ignore it. And then you showed up and arrested me, and threw me in that prison.”

Peter took a deep breath. “You don’t have to like me. You don’t have to trust me with anything other than this. I swear- I swear on my mother’s grave I didn’t have anything to do with that attack.” He winced. “I broke out of prison when the others did because of what I learned while I was in there.”

Peter looked so serious, that Garthan couldn’t help but instinctively trust want to know what he had to say. Maybe it was all a pack of lies, but since he was tied up here, he might as well at least pretend to listen to the Ravager. And somehow, he almost believed him. Maybe it was the seriousness with which the man spoke, free of the snarky quips he’d had to endure during Peter’s trial.

At the very least, it couldn’t hurt to listen to him. Garthan inclined his head minutely, and Peter continued.

“Ronan is working with Thanos,” he simply stated. Garthan’s blood went cold. The Mad Titan was well-known- he was cruel, sadistic, and very _creative_ with the ways he destroyed worlds. If Ronan had allied himself with Thanos, then all of Xandar was in danger. Actually, the entire _galaxy_ was in danger. Thanos’ obsession with annihilation wouldn’t stop with just one planet.

“Do you know for sure?” Garthan asked. Peter nodded.

“Thanos’ daughter- she was in the Kyln with me, she knows what his plans are, and she knows what Ronan’s objectives are,” he replied.  “Look, you don’t have to trust me in anything else,” he added. “But you need to believe me. Everyone- you, me, Xandar- the entire fucking galaxy- is in danger if you don’t.” Peter’s lips twisted a little. “I’m not happy about it either, believe me. You falsely accused me of terrorism! But you’re the only one who can help me.”

Garthan did not speak for a few minutes, mulling things over in his head. This had to be one of the weirdest days of his life. If Quill was telling the truth, there was much more at stake than just his own life. The _entire galaxy_ could be in serious danger from the genocidal Kree, not to mention his extremely powerful, insane ally. But was it really possible for two people to stop them both?

“What do you want me to do?” Garthan asked weakly. “What can we _actually_ do?”

Peter’s face twisted into a rather disturbing rictus grin. It was out of place on the usually laughing face, Garthan thought, and shivered.

“We’re going to kill Ronan the Accuser.”


	2. Chapter 2

Garthan stared at Peter,, who looked calmly back at him. “You’re going to kill… Ronan the Accuser,” he parroted. Peter nodded.

“I talked to Thanos’ daughter while we were in the Kyln,” he said. “It won’t be possible to kill him- not without a lot of backup, which we don’t have. And he really has no interest in Xandar. He’s only paid attention to it because of Ronan. If we kill Ronan, Thanos will move on. At least, Gamora believes so.”

“What if you’re wrong?” Garthan asked. Peter winced.

“We’ll have to deal with that as it comes. If it comes, which it probably won’t,” he said with as much bravado as he could muster.

Another disturbing thought occurred to Garthan. “What do you hope to get out of this? You have no connection to Xandar- you’re Terran. Why do you care what happens to Xandar? Or to me?”

“Not being accused of terrorism would be one thing,” Peter said. “And I don’t want to see a whole civilization wiped out.” He took a deep breath. “And besides, I live in the galaxy. I don’t want to see it destroyed!”

“Fair enough,” Garthan replied. That at least made sense- the man wasn’t really doing this out of the goodness of his heart- although his selfish motives were probably shared by most living beings in the galaxy.

“So you’ll help?” Peter asked.

Garthan nodded slightly. Peter’s face lit up in a grin- a true grin, not a cocky smirk or sheepish ‘aw shucks’ half-smile meant to disarm- and Garthan felt something in his chest flutter slightly. He quickly squashed it. He couldn’t actually have found the other man attractive, could he? It must have been one of the side effects of the drug beginning to wear off.

“Great! We’ll set course for where Gamora believes the Dark Aster is headed-“Peter’s words were cut off by the blaring of a proximity alarm. Swearing, he fumbled around on his nightstand for a remote control, clicked some buttons, and the window coverings opened. A large, if somewhat ramshackle, ship was fixing the smaller ship with its tractor beam, pulling it into the loading dock.

“Fuck…” Peter muttered, then moved to untie his captive. “If you want to live let me do all the talking, and don’t do anything stupid.”

Garthan wondered briefly if this was another one of the other man’s tricks, but a look at Peter’s face stopped that suspicion in its tracks. Peter looked truly terrified. “What’s going on?” he asked, trying to sound more reassured than he felt. Peter just grimaced.

“It looks like you’re going to meet my ‘parents,’” he said, making quote-marks in the air with his hands. “And I’m serious, don’t’ do anything stupid or Yondu will seriously kill you.”

This time, it was Garthan who winced. He could have died a happy man without ever having to actually cross paths with Yondu Udonta and his band of thugs. It was more than enough to have to clean up after whatever mess the Ravagers left in their wake without having to actually interact with the lunatics directly. “Good to know,” he said, trying to sound offhand. “Is there anything else I need to know?”

“Don’t gamble with Kraglin,” Peter replied distractedly, fiddling with some buttons on his remote again. “Don’t accept any food anyone gives you, and don’t look too long at anyone, they’ll take it as an insult.” He looked like he wanted to say more, but the beeping of his communicator interrupted him. Motioning for Garthan to get down, Peter took a deep breath and accepted the call.  

Immediately, the screen lit up with the scowling blue face of the notorious pirate captain. “Quill! Where th’ hell have you been, boy?! You didn’t show up after yer little trip to Xandar, and then Maka sees yer ship flyin’ around out here in the middle of nowhere! What’dya think yer doin’? You’ve got a job to do!”

“I guess it’s too much to ask that you pay attention to the news, huh?” Peter said dryly. “I’ve been in the Kyln, Yondu.”

The Zatoan’s face lit up in shock. “The Kyln? Hell, boy, how did’ya get out of there alive? They’ve been telling everyone there’s no survivors, and we even flew by there to see if we’d be able to salvage anything. Nothing, that Ronan motherfucker blew everything to bits!”  Then, his eyes narrowed. “And what the fuck did’ya do to end up in there anyway?”

“You didn’t see the videos from my trial?” Peter asked. “I would have thought for sure that Maka would have pulled them up and had a good laugh with everyone about it.”

“Hey! I heard that!” a loud, harsh female voice hollered from off-screen.

“Shaddup Maka!” Yondu shouted over his shoulder. “I’m talkin’ here!” Turning back to Peter, he glowered. “You were on trial?!”

“Yeah, got accused of blowing up a city block on Ronan’s orders,” Peter replied. “I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it, it was all over the news. All anyone could talk about for days was the Terran maniac working with Kree terrorists.” Yondu laughed, a loud braying sound.

“Shit, boy, they really are stupider than they look if they thought you was workin’ with Ronan the Accuser!” he cackled. “Well, that’s that, I guess! They’re dead, yer not, now get your ass on this ship and get to work, boy!”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Yondu,” Peter said, looking, surprisingly, genuinely apologetic. “There’s, uh, something I have to do first.”

It was about that time that Garthan sneezed- he’d been trying so hard to hold it in, but after being shoved unceremoniously into a pile of Peter’s dirty laundry, he’d felt the allergens tickling his nose. He couldn’t hold back, and he gave an almighty honking sneeze that lifted the very top of his head just above the side of the bed. It was just enough to break Yondu’s concentration, and the Zatoan narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

“Wait a minute… who’s that?! And why are ya in yer bedroom?!”

“Fuck…” Peter muttered under his breath. Out of sight of the camera, he aimed a kick at Garthan’s side. “You really fucked up,” he hissed to the other man. “Yondu wasn’t supposed to know about you!”

“Now who wasn’t I supposed to know about?” Yondu asked, eyes narrowing even further. “What are you hiding, boy?”

Mind reeling through a bunch of half-cocked plans running through his mind, Peter tried to think of something that would keep both him and Garthan alive. Everything he had planned would have come to nothing if his boss/surrogate father killed one or both of them. And he had no doubt that Yondu would kill Garthan- he hated the Nova Corps more than most other things he hated- and he had a considerable list of them. And if he thought that Peter was involved with collaborating with them, he’d kill him too. Now if only there was a way he could get Yondu off their backs…

And it hit him.

“Don’t say anything. Let me do the talking,” Peter hissed to Garthan, who nodded. Peter held out his hand to haul him up, and after looking at him suspiciously, Garthan accepted it. All of a sudden, he found himself being scrutinized by Yondu’s ever more suspicious stare.

“Yondu, this is Garthan Saal. He was with the Nova Corps,” Peter said, making sure to stress the past tense. Yondu scowled, but allowed Peter to go on. “And Garthan, this is my… well, this is Yondu Udonta.” He let the two men look at each other hostilely for a moment, before going on. “And we were, uh, in the middle of something when we ran across you, Yondu,” Peter said, hoping that Yondu would pick up on the innuendo and let it drop.

Of course, he wouldn’t have that kind of luck. Yondu’s scowl deepened even more.

“You’d better tell me what yer intentions are towards Quill, boy,” he addressed Garthan, a look of deep dislike on his face. “If yer fuckin’ with him because yer hoping to drag him back to Xandar for some bullshit he didn’t do, just know you’ve got enemies all over th’ galaxy. And you, Quill! What are you thinking? You know better than to get mixed up with a lawman! Look at what happened to poor old Marvyn when he knocked up that Nova Corps broad! You want that to happen to you?”

Peter rolled his eyes. “First of all, neither one of us can get pregnant. And secondly, wasn’t Marvyn the one who overdosed on spice in Knowhere?”

“He wouldn’ta _been_ in Knowhere if he hadn’t been working with her on that operation!” Yondu insisted.

Garthan couldn’t help himself. “I have no intention of remaining with Quill for the long-term,” he said flatly, ignoring the panicked look that Peter sent him.

It was the wrong thing to say.

“Are you sayin’ my boy ain’t good enough for you?” Yondu asked dangerously. “Because it sounded a lot like you was sayin’ my boy ain’t good enough for you. Y’all heard that, didn’t you?” he called to the crew. “The lawman thinks our boy ain’t good enough for him!”

There was a murmur of assent from the background, and Yondu was pushed aside so that a grizzled humanoid male and an absolutely enormous, gray-skinned humanoid female could take up the screen. Both appeared to be in middle-age, although with Ravagers it could be hard to tell- they could be adolescents aged prematurely by drugs, drink, and hard-living as far as Garthan knew.

“Git off my foot, Kraglin!” the female snapped, elbowing the male in the side. “Now Quill honey, you git back here on the _Eclector_ where you belong and forget all about that no-good lawman, y’hear? I’ll make you soup and you can tell me all about where we went wrong raising you that you’d let yerself get fucked by a Nova Corps officer!”

“Maka!” Peter and Yondu both yelped. The woman grinned, showing off a mouth full of very sharp teeth. Odd, Garthan thought, for a space pirate. Maybe her species regrew teeth if they lost one? And then he wondered why he was thinking about teeth in a situation like this, where he didn’t know if he’d make it out of this alive.

“Oh, yer the one doin’ the fuckin’?” she said. “Either way, I thought we raised ya better than that,”

“Now you listen to Maka, boy!” the man, apparently Kraglin, agreed. “We taught you better than that!”

“You wanted to eat me until I was sixteen!” Peter shouted, trying rather desperately to keep things from going any more bizarrely pear-shaped than they already were.

“We stopped really trying after the first month,” Kraglin argued. “And it built character! You learned how to defend yourself quickly enough!”

“That doesn’t mean it wasn’t psychotic!”

“Enough,” Yondu interrupted, shoving his way back into view. “Obviously the lawman means something to the boy, and since we’re here, we can make sure it all works the way we want it to. We’ll make sure the lawman makes an honest man out of Quill.”

Peter really did not like the gleam in the Zatoan’s eyes. Nor did he like the crazed grin that spread across Kraglin’s face, or the honking cackle that came from Maka’s throat, or the chuckles from the rest of the crew as they cottoned on to what their boss was saying.

“We’ve almost got ya into the docking bay,” he said. “You’ll remember what I told ya when you got your own ship, didn’t ya? About things you can do?”

A creeping horror was starting to creep along Garthan’s spine, but he tried to ignore it. Somehow he didn’t think it was a good idea to show weakness in front of this band of space trash. Peter looked rather alarmed as well, so he didn’t think this was some sort of normal Ravager thing that he’d misunderstood.

“Now yer gonna come aboard the _Eclector_ with yer little Nova Corps boyfriend and I’m gonna force him to make an honest man outta you. Or you outta him, I don’t know and I don’t wanna know the details. And then yer gonna go finalize it. And then I’ll let ya go on your way. How ‘bout it, boy?”

“I don’t’ have much of a choice, do I?” Peter asked.

“Nope. And neither does he, unless he wants to end up in Maka’s stew pot,” the Zatoan replied. The female humanoid grinned again, once more showing off her sharklike teeth.

“I’ve never tasted a Xandarian before. I’ve heard they taste nice,” she said, laughing and running a strangely long tongue over her teeth.

“That won’t be necessary!” Peter said quickly. Maka pouted.

“Aww.”

“We’ll see you two in a few minutes,” Yondu said, right before closing the connection. As soon as the screen went black, Garthan wheeled to face Peter.

“What was that?! What are they going to do to us? What was that about _eating_ us?! Is that something they’d really do?”

“Relax, I never saw Maka _actually_ eat anything sentient,” Peter said defensively. “And as for what’s about to happen… I think Yondu is going to marry us.”

“WHAT?!”

“Will you calm down?” Peter snapped, glaring in the face of Garthan’s outburst. “All you have to do is let Yondu say some magic words, and then they’ll let us get on our way. As soon as Ronan is dead you can go directly to Nova Prima and ask for a divorce, if they’ll even recognize marriages done on a Ravager ship in the first place.”

“This is absolutely insane,” Garthan said. “I knew I never should have trusted you!”

“I’m not the one who couldn’t’ lay low for a few minutes!” Peter retorted. “And would having to pretend to marry me really be that bad?”

“Yes!” Garthan yelled in frustration. Peter drew back like he’d been slapped, and for some bizarre reason, Garthan found himself feeling oddly guilty.

“Well, I’m sorry, next time I’ll just let you expose your position to a bunch of space pirates, and I won’t bother to bail your ass out! I’ll just let them think you’re taking advantage of me, or planning to arrest me, or worse, and let them do what they want to you! And if that means letting a Nylaxian eat you, then I guess that’s that! Oh, you might want to know that they don’t kill their food first, they just throw it in a pot with some vegetables and cook it alive, by the way.” Why was he getting so angry, anyway? Yondu was right- it was a bad idea to get involved with a corpsman. And it technically was Garthan’s fault that he was blamed for that attack in the first place! Really, he should be offering the man up to Maka on a plate himself! But somehow, Garthan’s words felt like a betrayal of some sort.

Garthan forced himself to take a deep breath and calm down. “That’s not what I meant,” he said, quietly. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Oh yeah?” Peter snapped.

“Someone of… my rank… is not supposed to have relationships outside of strictly professional ones,” Garthan said haltingly. “Lower-ranked Corpsmen are allowed to have lovers, and even families, but from a Millenian on up, we’re banned from any sort of… fraternization. If it was ever discovered that I had… engaged in a relationship, I would be stripped of my rank, and at Denarian level, the loss of the Nova Force that way is often fatal.” Peter’s eyes bulged.

“Holy shit! Holy _shit!”_ was all he could say for a few moments, before he managed to gather his thoughts. “They’d _kill_ you?! What the fuck, man?” He shook his head, still looking shell-shocked. “No wonder you panicked! Shit! I don’t want to get you killed! What the fuck do we do now?”

“It’s like you said,” Garthan replied. “I don’t think a Ravager marriage would be considered valid anyway, so we just do this, get on our way, and then we’ll never speak of it again.”

“Are you just going to ignore the fact that your boss would be willing to kill you for having sex!?”

“It’s… it’s not like that,” Garthan felt the need to defend Nova Prime. “It’s not her decision, and it is a logical one. Romantic entanglements provide good material for blackmail. And I never said she would actually kill me- just that losing your connection to the Nova Force at the level I am is very painful and can kill the person if it’s done abruptly, which is usually the case when someone is stripped of their rank.”

“Remind me to never join the fucking Nova Corps,” Peter said, shaking his head in wonder. “And here I thought Kraglin’s horror stories about you guys were crazy. Maybe he wasn’t so full of bullshit after all.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask about what a space pirate thinks is horrifying,” Garthan said. 

“Ha ha,” Peter snarked back.

All of a sudden, there was a loud crashing sound of metal on metal, and both men winced. “That would be someone forgetting to turn off the tractor beam in time. Yondu’s gonna be pissed…” He shook his head.

“Let’s just get this over with. The sooner we’re done with the, uh, wedding, the sooner we can be on our way, and the sooner we’ll be out of each other’s hair,” Peter said. Garthan nodded, feeling somewhat sick to his stomach despite Quill’s reassurances that everything would be fine.

Peter led him down to the loading area of the ship, hit a button next to the surprisingly small steel doors, and they slid open with a hiss. Peter’s eyes widened, and Garthan could immediately see why. It looked like the entire crew of the _Eclector_ had shown up to greet them. He recognized Yondu at the front, flanked by Kraglin, and a few steps back, the woman called Maka, but they weren’t alone. There must have been fifty people, all different races and species, and all of them were staring at him just as suspiciously as he was at them.

“Well, what are we waitin’ for? We’ve got a hitchin’ to go to!” Yondu called out. “Maka, Kraglin, git the lawman, I’ll take care of Peter.” Before Peter or Garthan could object, they were each hustled off in a different direction by their respective designated Ravagers.


	3. Chapter 3

Before he had too much of a chance to complain, Garthan was hustled off to a corner of the ship where Maka, Kraglin, and a few other Ravagers stripped him to his undergarments despite his protests. “Oh shush, I ain’t gonna eat ya,” Maka snapped, finally losing patience and grabbing him by the scruff of his neck and bodily hauling him into the shower bay. “Take a shower.” Her voice booked no room for argument.

Scowling, Garthan stepped into the shower and made to turn on the spray, but was stopped once again by the large female humanoid. “What?” he grit out.

“Take yer damn shorts off first! You’re worse than my son was as a toddler!”

“Then step outside,” Garthan snapped. Maka raised an eyebrow.

“Who’s gonna make sure you don’t do anything stupid?”

“I can wash myself!” Garthan retorted. And, blushing, he added, “besides, I can’t undress in front of you. It’s indecent.” All of the Ravagers present honked out their laughter.

“Maka here’s a mother six times over,” a scrawny pink Kree laughed. “If she hadn’t been widowed she’d probably been six more times.”

“You don’t got nothing I ain’t seen before,” Maka agreed. “I got four sons, and I’ve fucked Xandarian men. Unless yer some kinda hybrid you don’t have anything I’m not familiar with.”

Eventually, a compromised was reached. Kraglin would stand watch over Garthan while he showered, while Maka and the others would wait outside. Muttering under her breath about thrice-damned Xandarian prudery, the Nylaxian woman reluctantly complied.

“You know she’s not going to rest until she sees yer trouser snake,” Kraglin said once the others were out of the room. “She was hoping to check to make sure you were adequate enough for Quill.”

That didn’t do very much to ease Garthan’s mind, really…

Ultimately, however, he was left alone after the shower.  Not too long after that, he was led into the bridge area of the _Eclector_ , where Yondu and Peter were waiting along with the rest of the crew. The rest of the retinue, bar Kraglin and Maka, joined with their fellows, while the two others stood on either side of him. “What are you doing?” Garthan asked.

“Yer momma and daddy ain’t here,” Kraglin replied, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. “We’re the stand-ins.”

The actual marriage ceremony took about five minutes. Kraglin and Maka shoved Garthan forward, ordered him to take Peter’s hand, and then Yondu said a few words about cutting off Garthan’s reproductive organ if he ever found out he’d cheated on Peter. Then it was party time. It seemed like everyone produced bottles of (probably illegal) alcohol out of nowhere. Garthan hadn’t intended to drink anything, but apparently Ravagers took it as a personal insult if you refused a drink, so he accepted a cup of something radioactive-looking and green from Maka, who smirked at him as he took a sip from it.

Eventually things devolved into an impromptu karaoke party as everyone got progressively drunker, singing what Garthan figured were Ravager drinking songs or sappy love songs from their own planets. He himself eventually ended up center stage with Peter and Yondu, singing a song he remembered from his childhood.

_“Andromeda, Andromeda- respond please;_  
We cannot make contact.   
Andromeda, Andromeda- notice us;   
I look up with love at your place in the universe.” 

Considering everyone sang in different languages, the flow was messed up, but it didn’t really matter. He was beginning to feel slightly dizzy and pleasantly warm. Once their song was done, Maka got up in front of everyone and broke it up.

“Alright, alright everyone, break it up! Let’s let the newlyweds get on to the next part of the ceremony! There’s plenty of time tomorrow to hear all of you sing like shit!”

“We don’t get to watch what’s next?” a pirate with a mechanical eye asked with a leer. Maka aimed an empty cup of whatever she had been drinking at his head.

“Get yer mind outta the gutter, Datl, or I’ll throw you out the airlock. Let the boys have one night to themselves!” But then she fixed both of them with a hard stare. “You both drank the green stuff, right?”

“Yes, Maka,” Peter said with a roll of his eyes. “We both drank what you handed us. What was that, anyway? It was good!”

“My momma’s special fertility drink,” the Nylaxian woman said with a smirk. “I mixed it up years ago for when my youngest daughter got married! But now that I ain’t gonna be around to see that I was holdin’ it in reserve for a special occasion. Yer marriage is as good as any, although I don’t think it’s gonna do much good on the fertility aspect.” Then, she looked suspiciously at Peter. “Wait a minute, Terrans _are_ like everyone else, right? You ain’t gonna get knocked up?”

“Maka!” Peter said, turning bright red.

“What? Just checking. I ain’t gonna get to meet my grandbabies, but if you could have children then I’d get to see some anyway!”

“No, Maka, I can’t get pregnant, and neither can Garthan,” Peter said, rolling his eyes. Then, he stopped, turned to Garthan, and said, “uh, wait, you _can’t_ get pregnant, right?”

“I’m male,” Garthan replied, exasperated. “So no.”

“Uh… good, good,” Peter said, slurring his words slightly. He must have had more to drink than anyone realized, Garthan thought idly.  Maka smirked at them.

“Well, in that case, you two better get on with it. Even if it doesn’t make you more receptive to conception, it’s still gonna make you two go at it like tribbles, and I don’t think either one of you wants to get down to it right out here in the open. Not that some of us would mind,” she said with a simultaneous lecherous smirk and a glare at Datl.

“Knock it off, Maka,” Yondu said, intervening before anything got out of hand. “Quill’s young enough to be yer son and that Xandarian doesn’t look much older!”

“Hey, I’m old! I ain’t dead!” Maka retorted. “But seriously,” she said, turning to the newlyweds, a more sober (well, relatively anyway) expression on her face. “Get down to it. If you don’t you’ll end up with a permanent, well, you know,” she gestured vaguely at the two men, approximately at crotch-level. “Now git on with it, we’ve cleared out Kraglin’s room for you two tonight and he’s bunkin’ with me!” Not giving anyone a chance to complain, she herded both Peter and Garthan through a door off the side of the bridge, and latched it securely shut behind them.

* * *

Once the door was shut securely behind them, Garthan and Peter looked at each other uneasily. Peter shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, hoping against hope that the beginning stirrings of arousal were just alcohol and not anything else, but past experience with Maka’s concoctions told him that it probably was exactly what he was fearing.

For his part, Garthan was scowling at the floor while trying to ignore the fact that his skin was beginning to feel uncomfortably tight. He refused to be the one to break the uneasy silence and discuss this. Half of him wanted to run back out there and demand that the Ravager give him an antidote, because he had absolutely no intention of engaging in sexual congress with Peter Quill. But he knew that doing that would be suicidal- at least some of the crew seemed rather fond of Quill and wouldn’t take an attack on his honor lightly. And Garthan was pretty sure he knew what would be counted as an attack on one’s honor.

Awkwardly, Peter finally stopped shifting and looked up at Garthan. “We should… probably get on with it,” he said, gesturing weakly towards Kraglin’s bed.

“Absolutely not,” Garthan retorted.

“Do you want to be stuck with a permanent boner?!” Peter exclaimed, eyes wide. “You’ve never been on the receiving end of one of Maka’s brews before! If she says it’s going to do something, it will do it! And then some!”

It was right at that moment that Garthan’s body decided to make an inconvenient shudder that went straight to his dick. Trying to hide a gasp, Garthan backed up a few steps. Peter shot him a look.

“It’s already getting to you, isn’t it?”

“That… that doesn’t matter,” Garthan gasped, trying to regulate his breathing.

“Of course it does!” Peter snapped, eyes beginning to glaze over. “If we do it, hopefully it will burn whatever the hell she gave us out of our system.” Stepping gingerly closer, he took one of Garthan’s hands in his own.

Garthan tried to ignore how nice the other man’s large, heavy hand made his own feel so small and delicate. His cock cave another throb, and a strange tingling sensation began to creep down his perineum and concentrating around his hole. Gritting his teeth, he opened his mouth to tell Peter to let go of his hand and leave him be, but instead of words, only a lewd moan came out.

Peter growled, abruptly released Garthan’s hand and grabbed his shoulders, pulling the other man in for a searing kiss, which Garthan only fought against for a few moments before instinct took over, and he began to return it in kind.

It was like flying a ship on autopilot. Garthan and Peter were completely blind to everything but each other, each touch sending them higher and higher into ecstasy. At some point they must have moved to the bed, because Garthan found himself half-naked with a soft surface underneath him. Peter attacked his nipples like a starving man, and Garthan couldn’t stop soft cries from falling from his mouth. Had he always been this sensitive there? Every lick, nibble, pinch and twist from Peter sent him careening off like a balloon with nothing tying it down. Peter seemed to take particular pleasure in giving a hard suck to one while poking the other one, just to see Garthan’s reaction.

“Please, please,” Garthan begged, not sure if he was begging for Peter to stop, or to go further.

“Sssh, sssh, I have you,” Peter murmured against the other man’s chest, hand creeping lower to cup Garthan’s erection. Garthan whined at the contact, back arching off the bed. “Tell me what you want.”

“I- I-“

“Do you want me to stop?” Peter asked. “Or do you want me to fuck you?”

What _did_ he want anyway? It seemed like only a few minutes ago he’d been dead set against this, but for the life of him Garthan couldn’t remember why. Why hadn’t he done this years ago? He’d certainly known of Quill for years- he should have tried to charm the man into his bed before now. In fact, he was having trouble remembering why he hadn’t. All that mattered was figuring out how to keep Peter’s hand on his cock and providing that wonderful friction.

From some primitive part of his mind, the answer floated up to his hazy brain.

“Please… please fuck me,” Garthan begged.

With a feral snarl, Peter flipped him onto his stomach and grabbed at his ass cheeks. Garthan whined as he felt the cool air of the room hit his inflamed entrance, and his whines turned to screams as Peter began licking into him. All higher-order thinking became suspended as the two of them began the next movement of their primal dance.

* * *

 

The next morning, Peter woke up first. Briefly he wondered why the fuck he was in what looked like Kraglin’s private cabin, but then the previous day’s events crashed into him, reminding him of what had happened.

He’d gotten married. By Yondu. To a Nova Corps officer. And then they’d had wild, crazy sex thanks to some crazy drug Maka had given them.

How had this become his life?

Even more importantly, how in the hell had Garthan Saal gotten so good at sex!? Weren’t those Nova Corps bastards supposed to be celibate, and tamp down on any flickers of arousal they might feel? The memory of Garthan locking his legs around Peter’s waist and drawing him deeper into the tight, silky heat of his body. Garthan had looked so pretty when he finally shook apart- and even though Peter suspected the other man probably wouldn’t appreciate being described as “pretty-“ that was the best way that Peter could think of to describe him.

He was pretty asleep, too, Peter thought, looking down at his new “husband.” For the first time since he’d shanghaied him into this half-assed plan of his, the Nova Corps soldier looked at peace. The ever-present scowl he seemed to wear had softened out of existence, and his long eyelashes dusted his cheekbones.

Maybe, if things had been different- if Peter hadn’t been a Ravager- if Garthan hadn’t been a corpsman- maybe things would have worked out between them. Maybe they could have had a real relationship and not this sham marriage that probably wasn’t even considered legally binding in the first place.

Regrettably, though, that wasn’t the way things had turned out, and as soon as he woke up, Peter had a feeling that Garthan was going to lose his mind. If it hadn’t been for Maka’s concoction he wouldn’t have gone anywhere near Peter in an intimate context. And Peter had a sneaking suspicion that Maka knew that and that was why she had done it in the first place. From what he had been able to absorb of Nylaxian culture, they had a very different idea of what “courtship” and “sex” entailed, not to mention the fact that Maka herself had the morality of a space pirate- she probably thought she was helping him out. But all she’d managed to do was sign her own death warrant, and probably Peter’s too. There was no way that Garthan would let them just walk away from this. 

Quietly, so that he wouldn’t wake Garthan, Peter slipped out of bed and threw his clothes on quickly. He had to get back to the Milano. This was a mistake.

He never should have gotten the other man involved in this. He was going to have to clear his name on his own. Yondu would drop Garthan off on the closest inhabited planet and he’d be able to get a ride back to Xandar that way.

* * *

Garthan listened as he heard Peter bustle around, pulling on his clothes, wondering if the other man intended to run from this. All signs pointed to yes.

Logically, Garthan knew he should have been furious with the Ravager. Really, this was all his fault- first he dragged him into this absolutely harebrained scheme to kill Ronan the Accuser. Then, they’d gotten kidnapped by even _more_ Ravagers. And then, to top it off, he’d gone on to, ah, _ravage_ Garthan himself. 

But it hadn’t been unpleasant. Quite the opposite, in fact. Even when Peter had been fucking into him vigorously, he’d still shown care for Garthan’s pleasure, making sure that his fat cock scraped his insides in all the right ways, then taking his cock in hand and making sure Garthan reached orgasm first. It was a nice change from the awkward, fumbling encounters he’d endured in the past, in basic training.

Without being entirely conscious of it, the words found their way out of his mouth. “Don’t go.”

* * *

“Don’t go.”

The words stopped Peter in his tracks. At first he thought he might have imagined them, but Garthan was stirring, sitting up in the bed.

“Oh! Good morning!” he replied, injecting his words with a manic sense of cheer. “Did you sleep well?”

“Better than I have in a while,” Garthan replied honestly.

“Good… good…” Peter said, looking at the floor. “Look, I’m… I’m sorry, for what I did last night. I wasn’t… myself.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” Garthan cut in. At Peter’s floored look, he elaborated. “You were under the influence of that drug as well. And, really, it wasn’t entirely unpleasant.”

“Yeah?” Peter asked, a grin starting to creep across his face. Garthan snorted.

“Don’t get too full of yourself, it’s not that hard to surpass being pawed at by another cadet in the barracks while hoping desperately no one else comes in,” he said. Peter just laughed.

“You should hear some of my stories, man. Like when I was sixteen and I lost my virginity to Kraglin’s stepsister.” Garthan’s eyes widened at the thought- for some reason, all he could think of was Peter getting pinned under a version of the grizzled man in a dress with an oversized bow on his head. “Whatever you’re thinking probably wasn’t even half as bad as the real deal.”

“Now I’m really afraid,” Garthan said.

The two men laughed together, and Peter sat back down on the bed, plans of trying to leave forgotten.

“I’m not going to pretend it was an ideal start to our… relationship,” Garthan said diplomatically, “but it could have been worse. You’re not entirely bad in bed, and you did try to take some care for me.” He sighed. “I still don’t know that this is a good idea. In fact, it’s probably a terrible idea. But considering what could have happened, it’s not the worst outcome.”

“So you’ll still help me?” Peter asked hopefully. “Clear my name, that is?”

“I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this, but yes,” Garthan replied.

“Great!” Peter replied enthusiastically, reaching over and hugging the other man enthusiastically. Garthan froze for a moment, but returned the embrace.

Who knew it would take an overenthusiastic alien with a bizarre idea of acceptable boundaries to finally thaw out his heart?

* * *

 

“Now tell me honestly, Maka,” Yondu said with a drawl, looking at the security footage of the room the two occupied. “What _didja_ give them? I’ve seen Nylaxian fertility tea, and that weren’t it.”

The large gray-skinned woman smirked, showing off her sharp teeth once again. “Distilled churiria root liqueur,” came the response. Yondu’s eyes widened. Churiria roots were a powerful emotion amplifier- they wouldn’t create feelings, but they would intensify what was already there to an unbearable level. They were most commonly used as a performance-enhancing drug in various sports, and it wasn’t unheard of for soldiers, mercenaries, and fighters to chew on them before engaging in a conflict, or for use as an aphrodisiac. Usually, though, the aphrodisiac was used for situations where all parties involved were already intimately involved.

“Are you outta yer mind, woman?!” he exclaimed. “They coulda killed each other!” Maka rolled her eyes and snorted.

“You don’t get to my age without bein’ able to tell when folks are hiding their feelings from each other,” she retorted. “You know what they’re planning.”

“Do I look like an idiot to you!?” Yondu barked. “Of course I know what they’re planning ta do- it’s damn foolishness is what it is, and I don’t want no part of it. You knew that.”

“They had no chance of surviving it if they didn’t start being honest with each other,” Maka snapped. “Maybe it’s foolishness. But at least now if they die they’ll die honestly, if not honorably.”

“You always did have a head full of sentiment,” Yondu sighed. Maka shrugged.

“They’re doin’ it for revenge. Call it sentiment if ya want. It’s what’s kept me goin’ all of these years. But now I’m gettin’ to the end of my life- there won’t be time. And if Quill and his little Nova Corps lover can kill an Accuser I can go to the next world in peace.”

“Yer not gonna die anytime soon,” Yondu rolled his eyes. “Yer too damn mean. They’d send you right back.”

“Why, Yondu Udonta, that’s almost sweet of you,” the Nylaxian woman smirked. Yondu rolled his eyes one more time, and whistled.

Maka ran out of the cockpit cackling, dodging Yondu’s arrow as she beat a hasty retreat. Messing with Yondu was one thing, but she had some breakfast to rustle up for the newlyweds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song they sing is Andromeda, Andromeda by Nayutalien. You can listen to it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dKHanhb-zE). It's my own translation of that bit, so it might not be entirely accurate- lyrics are hard! Ravager dialogue is hard to write, too, sheesh. 
> 
> And while we're talking about hard things, so is Garthan. :P


	4. Chapter 4

The morning was a lot more subdued than the previous night. Garthan noticed (with some satisfaction) that the majority of the crew was dealing with fairly impressive hangovers. However, Garthan felt great- apart from a slight twinge in his ass, he couldn’t remember the last time he felt so rested. Peter seemed to be feeling much the same way, if the way he sort of bounced around (and the confused looks he got from some of the hungover crew-members) was any indication.

“It’s the tea,” Maka had said confidently, plonking a huge plate of something alarmingly greasy that Garthan couldn’t identify in front of them. “You’re feeling good, aren’t you?” Whatever the strange dish was must have been okay to eat, since Peter immediately started devouring his. Garthan picked at his, taking a small forkful, and found it wasn’t terrible- it was very different from anything he’d ever eaten before, but he was beginning to learn that a lot of things out in the galaxy were different from what he was used to.  It was actually rather tasty, despite the fact that he was somewhat wary of accepting anything the Nylaxian woman offered him- that weird tea had been enough!

All things considered, though, they were able to leave the _Eclector_ without too much terrible trouble. Peter accepted some good-natured snark from the rest of the crew, and Garthan endured a few nosy Ravagers wanting to know who was “doin’ who.” Yondu had called Peter away to talk about something privately, but it didn’t take very long, and Garthan’s new husband reappeared and quickly herded him to his own ship.

“Don’t forget what I told ya, boy! You’d better be bringing me what we discussed!” Yondu hollered after them. Peter responded by dismissively flapping his hands towards him and making an obscene gesture.

“What was that about?” Garthan asked. Peter shrugged.

“Just a business deal I have to deal with once we’ve stopped Ronan.”

“A business deal?” Garthan asked dubiously. Peter rolled his eyes.

“Don’t worry about it,” he replied. “You won’t have to be involved- as soon as we deal with Ronan I’ll drop you off back on Xandar, and you can go back to doing whatever it is you Nova Corps types do. I’ll make sure that you won’t be connected to the, uh, job, don’t worry.”

“Somehow that doesn’t make me feel any better,” Garthan replied.

“Ha ha,” came Peter’s sarcastic response. “Let’s not worry about that now! We’ll need to figure out where Ronan is headed first.” Then, he smirked. “But we can also take a break, can’t we? I’m still feeling the effects of that tea Maka gave us!”

Garthan wanted to protest, to complain, but the lewd expression on Peter’s face brought back memories of the previous night- memories he couldn’t ignore. Maybe it _was_ just the results of whatever weird alien voodoo drink he’d been given, but he felt the first stirrings of arousal in his lower regions. For all of his faults, Peter was _extremely_ good at using that mouth of his to do something other than spout snark.

As Peter leaned in closer, Garthan decided that hunting down Ronan could wait an hour or two.

* * *

Ultimately, hunting down Ronan wasn’t necessary. He broadcasted his location to the entire universe by slaughtering all of the inhabitants of a small moon not too far from Xandar itself.

In later years, the Nova Corps members who responded to the scene would say it was like nothing they’d ever experienced in all their time of working on crime scenes.

An incoming call from a contact of Peter’s who lived on the small planet informed them of what was happening, and as soon as he’d said “Ronan,” the two immediately knew where they had to go. Regrettably, though, they (and the rest of the Nova Corps) were too late.

The first thing that hit them on disembarking from the _Milano_ was the unnatural stench, beyond the reek of dead bodies. Garthan actually gagged upon smelling it for the first time, and Peter struggled to keep his eyes open, as they watered from the intensity of the smell. It was disgusting- like a sickly sweet perfume sprayed to mask the smell of decay and rot, all overlaid by the metallic scent of spilled blood. It was impossible to get away from- Peter had even deployed his mask, only to retract it in disgust a few moments later, since even the air filter couldn’t purify the obnoxious stench of decay and death.

The smell in and of itself would have been bad enough, but the corpses everywhere made it worse. Ronan had not cared where his victims fell, or gave any thought to order or reason in where he killed them. This was not an orderly assassination- this was a massacre. The storm drains were filled with blood of all different types and colors, and most of the bodies had strange, almost cauterized wounds all over them. Others, however, were little more than the shredded remains of viscera and other internal organs strewn around everywhere. Even hardened veterans of the Corps were having difficulty dealing with the sheer brutality of the massacre.

Trying not to let his disgust overpower his judgment (although it was difficult- this was easily the most graphic, disgusting, reckless crime scene he’d ever encountered), Garthan hesitantly peered at the nearest corpse to himself. Well, at least part of the corpse that was closest to him. In life, the victim had been a young male, probably 15-20 years of age, most likely of mixed Nylaxian and Xandarian extraction, if the grayish skin but lack of pointy teeth (bared in a furious rictus) was any indication. The head and upper thoracic part of the torso were detached from the remainder of the body, which was lying about ten feet in the opposite direction.

The cause of death was fairly obvious. Most beings would not survive their thoracic spine being completely severed in such a way. But it was the nature of the wounds that interested Garthan the most.

“Look at this,” he commented under his breath to Peter, who was hovering off to the side, looking rather green. “It’s strange, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” Peter replied, tentatively approaching, but still keeping his eyes rather averted, at least as much as he could. “You’d think being cut in half would kill anyone, wouldn’t it?”

“Not that,” Garthan said. “Look at the wounds. Do you see anything strange there?” Peter looked down, winced, looked away, and then took a longer look at the corpse.

“He was cut in half, if that didn’t kill him he would have died of blood loss anyway,” he replied. Garthan nodded.

“Except there’s not much blood, see? You’d expect from a cut that sliced him like that there would be a lot of blood,” he said. “But there’s not, and if you look closely it almost looks like he was burned in half, rather than cut.”

“If you say so,” Peter muttered.

It continued on like that, with Garthan and the rest of the Corpsmen who had been dispatched inspecting the corpses, while Peter hovered off to the side, occasionally adding in his commentary if he saw something particularly egregious or unexpected. Ultimately though, he was the one who came up with a theory- it was only after seeing the scorched remains of what the Nova Corps had figured must have been a suicide bomber that it came to him.

“I don’t think it was a bomb,” Peter said, uncharacteristically reticent, poking at an odd pile of flaky ash that had collected near the detonation site. “I’ve seen bombs go off, they don’t look like this.”

“Oh yeah?” one of the Nova Corps retorted. “What else do you think it is then?”

Peter took a breath. “It’s going to sound crazy, and maybe it is, but when I was a kid Kraglin told me that there used to be these things that were remnants from when the universe was formed. They’re extremely destructive, and they can’t be safely handled, so he told me if I ever found one to not pick it up, since you’d die before you managed to sell it for anything. But they weren’t really anything we expected to ever find…”

Garthan inhaled sharply. He’d heard the stories too, although probably not the same ones that Peter had. At the very least the underlying message had been different, most likely.

“Anyway, these things- they’re like little rocks, they’re called Infinity Stones- they can destroy entire planets with a small touch, and if anyone touches it directly who doesn’t have the right, biology or something, Kraglin was never clear on what it was, would explode. I’d imagine it could be used for targeted attacks. Like this one.”

One of the other Nova Corps officers attending the scene scoffed at that. “Where would Ronan the Accuser have gotten an Infinity Stone?” she snapped. “Who _is_ this guy, anyway?”

“Actually, he might have a point,” another officer replied. “There’s some evidence he’s been working with Thanos.” A murmur went up from the rest of the crowd- Thanos was not a name to be invoked lightly. But he generally didn’t concern himself with incidents like this, as horrible as they were. He was not the sort of being to get involved with anything less than a full-scale genocide. But if there were Infinity Stones involved… it suddenly wasn’t as bizarre a theory as it might have once been considered.

The woman who had scoffed at Peter’s theory wasn’t convinced, though. “Do you really think that Thanos would concern himself with the actions of a petty Kree terrorist?” she retorted.

Although she never did manage to hear the response to that.

It happened in an instant- a bright flash of light, a clanging sound, a short scream, and then- nothing, other than a mangled corpse in the remains of Nova Corps armor. Everyone shrieked, screamed, and scattered- creating a perfect path for the perpetrator to show himself.

Ronan the Accuser strode forward, making sure to step in the muck left behind from his attack on the woman. Sneering, he stared down the Nova Corps (and Peter). Especially Peter. Instinctively, everyone drew back a step or two, which only caused Ronan’s sadistic smirk to grow wider.

“I no longer have need of Thanos. He has outlived his usefulness,” he stated, calmly, just like was commenting on the weather. “Just as this planet was a test for the destruction of Xandar, Xandar shall be the test of Thanos’ destruction. It’s almost a pity, really,” he continued, “that none of you will be able to see my final triumph.”

Peter realized what was going to happen before anyone else could parse it. He could see that Ronan had embedded some sort of stone into his hammer- likely that Infinity Stone he was rumored to have, and would have gotten from Thanos if he indeed was working with him.

Perhaps Ronan hadn’t secured it in properly, or maybe blood from his victims had gotten into the ornamental crevices in the hammer and lubricated the stone, or maybe the moon’s gravity had something to do with it, but as Ronan swung the hammer down, ready to obliterate the entire faction of Nova Corpsmen and anyone else who had survived his rampage, something caused the small glowing rock to detach and fall towards the ground.

Peter didn’t hesitate. He lunged forward, hand outstretched to catch it. As he felt his fingers close around the stone, he spared a moment to regret that he hadn’t managed to finish what he’d come to do- kill Ronan, and clear his name. At least he was going to go out in an impressive manner.

Garthan saw what was happening, and screamed out a “NO!” but it did no good. Peter had already grabbed it, and to the horror of the Nova Corpsman, it looked like he was burning from the inside out. One person could not control the power that stone had, and Peter’s body would burn itself up trying to contain all of that energy.

It was pointless, and reckless, and everyone would die anyway, but before he could stop himself, Garthan outstretched his hand, yelling for Peter to take it. Peter turned to look at him, eyes glowing with an unnatural light, seemingly not comprehending anything said, but he did accept the outstretched hand.

As soon as their hands connected, Garthan felt the surge of power run through him. It did not feel like the Nova Force that flowed through his veins already. This felt… wrong, for lack of a better word. It didn’t exactly hurt, but it buzzed strangely, like a live wire. He felt his limbs going numb, and his brain overloading like a fried disk-drive, but still, he kept the connection.

Almost mindlessly, he heard the shouts coming from the other Nova Corps members, and vaguely registered the tactile sensation of another hand grabbing his. The buzzing died down a little, but not enough to offer any relief. As more and more hands joined the chain, the buzzing died down even more, and the feeling of corrupt power flowing through him returned to a more bearable level- to the level that he could actually hear.

“You’re mortal! How?” he heard Ronan gasp.

“Because bitch,” he heard Peter reply, breathing heavily. “We’re the guardians of the galaxy!”

And with that, the world went white as the power burst forth from Peter, and everyone in the chain.

 

 


	5. Epilogue

Epilogue- Three Months Later

All things considered, Nova Prime too the whole thing very well. After all, it wasn’t every day that she received a report that an entire squadron of Nova Corpsmen, a different Corps member who she viewed as a close friend, and a convicted criminal with ties to the infamous Ravagers literally saved an entire planet by grabbing one of the most destructive substances known to the galaxy- and survived. There was no record of anyone, except for maybe Thanos, being able to handle an Infinity Stone without exploding.

It also wasn’t every day that a man who’d already been convicted of aiding and abetting a terrorist attack jumped in to stop the same person he’d previously been accused of helping. It especially was unusual that the accused-terrorist-turned-national-hero’s emergency medical tests showed that he was something other than completely Terran. And it was _absolutely unheard-of_ that the not-entirely-human-accused-terrorist-turned-national-hero had also married a Nova Corps officer in an unconventional ceremony carried out by space pirates. A ceremony that, by a little-used bylaw hidden deep in the legal codes of Xandar, was entirely acceptable and binding in the eyes of the law.

Normally, anyone higher than Millenian rank in the Nova Corps was not allowed to have a romantic partner- the risks were too great. But in this case, Nova Prime decided that the rules could be bent a bit. After all, Denarian Saal and Peter Quill _had_ technically saved the galaxy.

However, she was not content with the only marriage ceremony being the raucous Ravager version. If Garthan was going to get married, he was going to do it properly.

So that was how both Garthan and Peter, for the second time in a year, were awkwardly standing facing each other for a marriage ceremony, while Nova Prime herself stood in front of them. Although she’d never show it outwardly, she was smirking on the inside. Really, for someone who was reckless enough to actually grab an Infinity Stone, Peter Quill was _hilariously_ uncomfortable with meeting her face-to-face, and even more uncomfortable in the borrowed suit he was wearing for the occasion. But she contained her inner emotions, it was time for the ceremony to start.

“We are all gathered here today to not only honor the bravery and honor of Peter Quill and Garthan Saal, we are also here to celebrate the union between the two of them,” the austere woman intoned. “Apparently,” she continued, her voice dry as the desert, “they were already married in a Ravager ceremony. And they didn’t bother to invite us.” There was a smattering of laughter and repressed snorts from the rest of the Corpsmen in attendance as witnesses.

She went on to say a few words about how Peter’s quick thinking, and Garthan’s willingness to dive right in, managed to save the moon outpost from being blown to bits with no chance of survivors. Then, she spoke a bit more- this time, about the rules and regulations of the Nova Corps, and what it meant to be someone as high up as Denarian level.

“Normally, for the safety of everyone involved, Nova Corpsmen from the Millenians upwards are forbidden from having romantic relationships, much less marriages,” Nova Prime stated. “However, given the circumstances, we are prepared to do away with that regulation in this case. As sentimental as it may seem, one of the prevailing theories as to how Peter Quill and Denarian Saal were able to hold that stone as long as they did was because of the deep bond shared between them. Given the circumstances, we feel it would be unwise to prevent their marriage. Therefore, I now pronounce them to be married in the eyes of the law, and in the eyes of the Worldmind. Thank you all for coming today.”

“That was it?” Peter muttered under his breath. Garthan nodded.

“Xandarians are not known for their love of ceremony,” he muttered back. Peter blinked.

“Really? Seems like everything you guys do is really pretentious, what with the fancy starblasters and uniforms and things like that,” he responded.

Garthan just smirked. “We prefer to put the effort into the more… interesting things,” he said. “I’ll teach you all about that. Speaking of, Nova Prime rented us a hotel room- you want to head out? We don’t really do receptions, so you won’t have to sit through one of those.”

Peter’s confusion immediately turned to a hot spike of lust when he realized exactly what Garthan was implying.

“Well then, _Denarian_ , it sounds like it’s time for me to ‘experience some culture.’”

Hand in hand, they exited the grand room, ready to begin the newest adventure of their lives- together.  

/END  

**Author's Note:**

> This fic became a bit of a monster! I wish I'd been able to do the prompt more justice... maybe I'll end up expanding it a bit in the future. I wasn't sure how well I'd do with this going in, but I had fun writing it, at least. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
